Foreign airlines let passengers make calls, but US airspace still a dead zone.

This month, Emirates became (PDF) the latest airline to add in-flight cell phone service to its fleet of A380 aircraft. The Dubai-based carrier, which had offered a similar service on other aircraft since 2008, joins Virgin Atlantic, Etihad, and nearly two dozen other airlines around the world in permitting satellite-based mobile service so their passengers can make calls and send text messages from the air.

While increasing numbers of American carriers offer on-board Wi-Fi, none so far allow for mobile phone calls or text messages. In an era of all airlines looking for new ways to make money, it would seem that charging rates starting at $1.20 per minute would be a no-brainer.

So why are American airlines behind the times? Federal regulations currently prohibit the use of mobile phones in-flight—however, that rule is under review by the Federal Aviation Administration. Even foreign carriers that fly to the United States must disable the service once within 250 nautical miles of the country.

"Since 1991, the FCC has restricted the in-flight use of cell phones in US airspace because of potential interference with ground networks," wrote Ian Gregor, an FAA spokesperson, in an e-mailed statement.

"However, in the 2012 reauthorization bill, Congress directed the FAA to complete a survey of foreign governments regarding the impact of in-flight cell phone use for voice communications in scheduled passenger service in countries where in-flight use of cell phones is currently allowed. The FAA is publishing the results of this survey in the Federal Register with a comment period. The agency will send the final survey report to Congress by the end of the year, as required."

How disruptive is disruptive?

A common kneejerk reaction against allowing mobile calls on flights is that it would be too disruptive. But for now, travelers seem more interested in using their phones for data and texting rather than voice calls. Beyond the legal restriction, domestic American airlines say their customers don’t want it.

"The answer is very simple for United—and in line with what Airlines for America and others have said: United customers tell us that they don't favor in-flight cell phone usage, and they say it is likely to detract from their onboard experience," said Rahsaan Johnson, a spokesperson for United Airlines.

Representatives from Southwest (the country’s largest domestic carrier) and JetBlue have also indicated similar perspectives.

"We’re open to any new developments and will consider amending our current philosophy should real evidence emerge that tells us more of the story than what we currently know," Allison Steinberg, a JetBlue spokesperson, told Ars.

However, foreign airlines say that it’s not nearly as disruptive as some might think. (After all, we had Airfones once, right?)

"Disruption has simply not arisen as an issue," said Aurélie Branchereau-Giles, a spokesperson for OnAir, a Swiss firm that is one of the largest mobile service providers to the airlines, including Emirates.

"In the five years of Mobile OnAir’s operations across the world, no airline has reported any incidents of disruption caused by inflight GSM. If you look at usage, nearly half is text messaging and most of the other half is e-mailing. Only about a tenth of all usage of the OnAir cell phone network is for voice calls. And aircraft are noisy environments, so the noise of a conversation doesn’t travel from row to row anyway. Also, the cabin crew have the option of being able to turn off the voice element, though again we haven’t heard of any airline doing so."

The Los Angeles Times similarly reported recently that since 2008, Emirates passengers have used their phones over 10 million times for texting and data, while just 625,000 times for voice calls. In those four years, the company noted it had received only two passenger complaints.

Is Wi-Fi enough?

Amongst passengers, there seems to be some disagreement, analysts and activists say, as to what the true level of interest would be.

"When we’ve talked to our members, we get very little [negative] feedback," said Kate Hanni, the founder of FlyersRights.org, which has 50,000 members. "I have to fly a lot between San Francisco and Washington, DC and I get a lot of media calls. I would love the opportunity to make calls during long transcontinental or transatlantic flights."

But Henry Harteveldt, an analyst and co-founder of the Atmosphere Research Group, told Ars that in nearly a decade of studying in-flight communications (mostly Wi-Fi), he had never seen "a meaningful number of US travelers [who] want to use their cell phones for voice calls."

"A Q2 2012 Atmosphere Research study of US airline passengers shows that two-thirds own a smartphone," he said. "Since essentially every new-generation mobile phone is an Internet-enabled device, using in-flight Wi-Fi for e-mail, social networking, etc. is practical, and is really what the traveler wants. Texting isn't essential when a consumer has other options to use for communications—for example, Gmail, instant message, Facebook chat, et cetera."

Regardless, for those of us who would love to make air travel more Internet-friendly (and are happy to use Skype or Google Voice to send text messages), the FCC has said that it is working on accelerating the approval process for airlines and aircraft to bring more Wi-Fi on-board.

"Americans increasingly expect access to broadband wherever they go, even when they are 30,000 feet in the air," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a September 2012 statement.

"To enable broadband providers to meet those demands, and promote the economic growth and job-creating impacts of ubiquitous broadband, we are circulating rules to help speed the deployment of Internet services on-board aircraft. These rules will provide regulatory certainty, allow us to process applications up to 50 percent faster, and ensure other radio service operations are protected from harmful interference."

onboard "experience"? Experience of what? Screaming children that parents have no care about controlling? Or the blonde ditz who decides it would be a genius idea to spray her perfume while sitting in the seat next to me? THAT experience? I think a cell phone would be a minor disruption in comparison.

I can't stand flying at the moment due to all of the other careless idiots in the cabin. Being able to distract myself with my cell phone would be a welcome change.

But Henry Harteveldt, an analyst and co-founder of the Atmosphere Research Group, told Ars that in nearly a decade of studying in-flight communications (mostly Wi-Fi), he had never seen "a meaningful number of US travelers [who] want to use their cell phones for voice calls."

I can't help but wonder if having mobile accessibility on aircraft would have made 9/11 go differently...and which way it would have altered things.

IIRC, I believe there was mobile accessibility on the aircraft on 9/11. Multiple calls were recorded from callers aboard the planes. That's where the "let's roll" song from some country music guy came from - the last words heard on the (recording?) of one of the Pennsylvania passengers on a call to his (mom?) I think.

So if these people need voice calls that bad, why are they not using VOIP with their wifi access? I bet if they can afford online in flight access, they are more than likely own a smartphone. Else get a decent mic, headset for your laptop to chitchat. Skype it up.

I think the image up there is pretty much completely the opposite of what we think about when the word "air travel" is used in conjunction with "cell phone".

I'm picturing a person cramped into seats, rendering them unable to move, let alone do something luxurious like crossing their legs, with sweaty, overweight people crammed on either side of them screaming into their cell phone and spilling coffee.

Add in "methane man" from my last flight out to CA, (someone who was on the end of a week-long bender of beer, cabbage and beans), and a flight attendant who would prefer to throw your bag of peanut at your head and keep on walking, and you're about in the right zone.

I want cell phones kept as far away from plane flights as possible. I understand business needs and all, but, frankly, people are rude. (Well, my concept of rude.) Loud, ringtones on, chattin' away for the entire flight... I don't want to be around that on any flight. Sure it's convenient, but surely whatever the phone call would be can wait until landing.

I was on a flight a year or two back where the mother of the kids was showing the kids a DVD on their laptop with the sound cranked up. I found that to be extremely rude, even if the kids can't sit still otherwise. Headphones, headphone splitters... etc.

Maybe I'm just getting a little to "get offa mah lawn" about this, but airplanes are one of the last few places of mobile solitude to me. I guess I could get behind the idea if every airline handed out a complimentary pair of noise-cancelling headphones for the duration of the flight... Or maybe there could be a sound-proof section that's for in-flight callers only... but then there'd be a price premium to *not* be in that section, though it'd probably be worth it.

I'm irritated often enough in public places by loud-mouths talking on cell phones. At least there, I can get up and move away. I don't want to be stuck on a plane with some salesman blabbing away with contacts non-stop for four hours.

Good. On public transportation, planes should have rules that are more akin to what are on busses.Do as you will, but don't be a disruptive nuisance to others.

If someone is a nuisance on a bus or subway, I can get up from where I'm sitting and move further away from them. I cant on an airplane (at least not with assigned seating, and even then not while the seat belt sign is turned on).

I don't have a problem with people texting in flight, fine with me (I already use iMessage while on the airplane's wifi so I can do most of it already). But talking on the phone? Not so fast...

My question is this. I have an airplane mode on my phone that disables all of my radios (4G, 3G, Wifi, everything) so that I can continue to use my phone while on an airplane. If I then wanted to access the in-flight WiFi, how would you propose I accomplish this? Turning off airplane mode re-enables all radios, and there is no way to just turn off the cell radios on my phone (they are constantly on unless airplane mode is enabled). I'd love to be able to browse the internet on my phone while flying using the wifi available on the plane, but to do so would violate federal law (since it would activate my cell radios as well).

The idea is nice, but until they allow for cell reception on planes, I don't think in-flight wifi will ever be useful to anyone with a smartphone.

If I'm wrong, please let me know. By the way, I'm an Android user, and if there is a way to disable only the cell radios that I haven't found, I'd love to know how to do it.

I can't help but wonder if having mobile accessibility on aircraft would have made 9/11 go differently...and which way it would have altered things.

Irrelevant. This is about normal use of cellphone etc. Its not like you can't turn them on and they won't work.

Inkling wrote:

This Ars article is more than a little slanted.

I'm irritated often enough in public places by loud-mouths talking on cell phones. At least there, I can get up and move away. I don't want to be stuck on a plane with some salesman blabbing away with contacts non-stop for four hours.

That is what the "experience" the airlines are talking about. They'd rather you be bored out of your mind. Then thinking 10 ways to make a shank out of supplies you can find on the drink cart to shut someone up because they won't stop talking on the phone.

Please, no cell phones on flights. Bad enough when two "talkers" sit next to each other and ramble on about absolutely nothing for 5 hours straight. But to have a plane full of people doing that... >_<

A plane is loud (unless you are way in the front, like all the way in the front of a 747), and folks would just be yelling.

But Henry Harteveldt, an analyst and co-founder of the Atmosphere Research Group, told Ars that in nearly a decade of studying in-flight communications (mostly Wi-Fi), he had never seen "a meaningful number of US travelers [who] want to use their cell phones for voice calls."

How does he know, given that a pre-condition for US air travel is no voice calls?

It sounds like his conclusion is based on the observations of travelers' behaviors with cell phones, perhaps even limited to those travelers with cell phones who are actively engaged in other forms of communication.

Its not so hard to disbelieve that a person who has gotten on a plane knowing that they will not be able to make voice calls have instead prepared contingent behaviors in advance of the flight; and that therefore the joint probability of a person wanting to make a voice call given that a person got on a US air flight knowing voice calls would be disallowed is low or nearly 0. There's a huge preselection bias.

I think a better observation would be of the number of people making calls when the cabin door is still open before take off, and also after the plane has landed during taxi, perhaps excluding those related to arranging pickup and dropoff (or perhaps not, since those are valid voice phone calls). I think I typically see 5-10% making business or personal calls aside from arranging pickups and 30-50% (inclusive) making calls for the purposes of arranging pickups.

My question is this. I have an airplane mode on my phone that disables all of my radios (4G, 3G, Wifi, everything) so that I can continue to use my phone while on an airplane. If I then wanted to access the in-flight WiFi, how would you propose I accomplish this? Turning off airplane mode re-enables all radios, and there is no way to just turn off the cell radios on my phone (they are constantly on unless airplane mode is enabled). I'd love to be able to browse the internet on my phone while flying using the wifi available on the plane, but to do so would violate federal law (since it would activate my cell radios as well).

The idea is nice, but until they allow for cell reception on planes, I don't think in-flight wifi will ever be useful to anyone with a smartphone.

If I'm wrong, please let me know. By the way, I'm an Android user, and if there is a way to disable only the cell radios that I haven't found, I'd love to know how to do it.

I'm on Cyanogenmod 7, and I'm nearly positive that if you enable airplane mode then enable wifi (in the drop down notification drawer) then it will disable cell radios while allowing wifi connections.

I have operated VHF, UHF, and GPS on commercial passenger flights since I have had them (+20 years) and never once had I have had an issue with communications.

I know other pilots that do trans-pacific flights that carry and use amateur equipment up on the flight deck without any issues.

This is (was) a knee jerk reaction by the FAA and the airlines. It also boils down to control. By providing a service, they can terminate the service at a moments notice. If they don't want you to be able to communicate to the outside world all they need to do is throw a switch. Being able to have everyone use their phones or radios onboard, they loose that control.

The FCC restricted the use due to the fact that ground based networks would suffer interference. Back in 1991, most of the cell phones were all analog, AMPS systems. Being up that high would cause 'interference' by having the cell phone communicate with many cell towers. Back in the day the computing technology that operated the cell networks could (and was from personal experience trying it back in the early 90's) not figure where the strongest cell site was to the phone and assigning a channel pair to it - as well as the phone in the sky walking over other cell channels far away and causing interference for the receiving cell on the ground.

Today with digital systems in France Germany, and Japan, those networks are handling calls just fine with (albeit a little slower) high speed trains operating up to 200MPH without any issue. So why not try it with 600-700MPH jets at altitude. Let the carriers figure out how to make it work! Perhaps they need Radiax (leaky cable) coax lining the cabin ceiling and putting the other end of that onto a multiband antenna on the belly of the plane to act as a passive repeater.

As for the 'onboard experience', I have had a great many hours of boredom overcome by seeing what can be heard and talked to at altitude - also seeing my GPS show 657MPH at 36.5K ft!

EDIT: One more comment: If you dont like the noise (either from the airplane or the person with the phone)...wear ear plugs. I always do and it sure feels better at the end of a 17 hour flight not to have your ears ringing for a day.

What is this bullshit about in-flight WiFi being common? I've seen it *once*.

You're flying the wrong routes, I guess. Seems like about half the flights I've been on in the last couple years have had it. I think all Virgin flights have it, and I've seen it on Delta and (IIRC) Hawaiian as well. Maybe it was Alaska.

I have to be honest, I clicked on the article to see the full headline photo O_O

All immaturity aside, I think it would be terrible to bring cell service onboard plane flights. I value the peace and quiet on board the plane. Imagine being stuck in a giant elevator for 3 hours with people yapping on their cellphones. Not. Fun. The worst offenders would likely be teenagers chit-chatting with their middle/high-school friends about ridiculous locker drama that would make me want to just keel over after 5 minutes of listening to it... oh god, I'm going to have nightmares tonight...

My average flight time is probably about 12 hours. Most are 16 with some short hauls thrown in to pull the average down.

The thought of being on a 16 hour flight where you usually have to try and get an element of sleep in with some muppet blabbing on about what their cat had for breakfast or whatever drivel - oh dear no please keep that 'feature' away.

One of the few things I look forward to about flying - the fact that its a nice long break from my phone and the phones of others.

What is this bullshit about in-flight WiFi being common? I've seen it *once*.

You're flying the wrong routes, I guess. Seems like about half the flights I've been on in the last couple years have had it. I think all Virgin flights have it, and I've seen it on Delta and (IIRC) Hawaiian as well. Maybe it was Alaska.

Alaska and Virgin have the best WiFi penetration. Delta and US Airways are the biggest airlines around here in terms of flights. I've only seen it on a Delta flight. Their penetration numbers are also skewed, I think. They talk about their "main fleet" having WiFi, but most of the planes with their logo on the side are really some podunk partner airline (Air Wisconsin, etc.).

I'm irritated often enough in public places by loud-mouths talking on cell phones. At least there, I can get up and move away. I don't want to be stuck on a plane with some salesman blabbing away with contacts non-stop for four hours.

Hey man, way to be selfish. I have a solution to your problem though. It's called "noise-canceling headphones." Invest in a pair and you will never again be annoyed by crying babies or - hopefully in the near future - blabbing salespeople.

If someone is a nuisance on a bus or subway, I can get up from where I'm sitting and move further away from them. I cant on an airplane (at least not with assigned seating, and even then not while the seat belt sign is turned on).

On every airline I have ever flown with (which isn't very often admittedly), you can ask the cabin crew to assign you a different seat.

Even a full flight always has a couple of extra seats from people who cancelled at the last moment, and if you have a good reason they are always willing to move you. I've done it a few times on different airlines around the world, and never been refused.

Wait for the fasten seatbelt sign to turn off, make sure the staff aren't busy serving food or making an announcement, and explain the reason you want to move. Problem solved.

SirOmega wrote:

I don't have a problem with people texting in flight, fine with me (I already use iMessage while on the airplane's wifi so I can do most of it already). But talking on the phone? Not so fast...

How is talking on the phone any different to talking to the person sitting in the seat next to you? Both are equally annoying, and equally acceptable provided they aren't being too noisy or discussing offensive topics.

Most noise-cancelling headphones I've used actually make it easier to hear people speak, as it just actively filters out ambient noise.

You're just trolling at this point.

On a plane I've had that experience with both the Bose QuietComfort and the old Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7B. In areas with really crazy ambient background noise (like plane engines) they made it easier to hear someone speaking next to you. Because all of that ambient noise was largely gone but their voice isn't.

Most noise-cancelling headphones I've used actually make it easier to hear people speak, as it just actively filters out ambient noise.

You're just trolling at this point.

On a plane I've had that experience with both the Bose QuietComfort and the old Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7B. In areas with really crazy ambient background noise (like plane engines) they made it easier to hear someone speaking next to you.

But hey. Keep being a dick.

Yup. They only eliminate the noise, not speech/crying/whatever, thereby boosting the percieved SNR of those other distractions. It's a thing.

As much as I think people need to get over the "zomg don't want to sit next to phone talkers for eight hours" argument, noise-canceling headphones are absolutely not a solution.

EDIT: Noise isolating headphones may work better, but even that's only gonna go so far.

I'm torn on the issue. On one hand, mobile communication is becoming more and more an integral part of our lives. On the other hand, if you can't be without your phone for a few hours, what are you actually doing? I heard this saying before: If you're important, you have a cell phone. If you're actually important, you have a personal assistant.

So far I haven't been on a flight where mobile phones were allowed. I would not mind if that were never to change.

I love the idea of United tell customers what they do and do not want while they're hemorrhaging money to the point that their pilots are intentionally causing delays and disruptions in retaliation for loss of benefits. It's so bad travel agents won't even book United because they know the plane is just as likely to never leave the ground as it is to arrive on time. I never hear anything positive about United, nevermind their brief dalliance into the WTC that started this whole mess, no one really talks about that as the reason they still won't fly United 11 years later, it's more about things like that endearing youtube video "United you broke my guitar" the delayed flights by pilot sabotage over collective bargaining, the banning of that autistic child from first class... Bad customer service, in short. This cellular bit is more proof of United simply not getting it, all the way to the poor house.

Oh for the love of God no. It's bad enough dealing with the rudeness of people on planes without them yammering into their phone for an entire flight.

DrigJ wrote:

My question is this. I have an airplane mode on my phone that disables all of my radios (4G, 3G, Wifi, everything) so that I can continue to use my phone while on an airplane. If I then wanted to access the in-flight WiFi, how would you propose I accomplish this? Turning off airplane mode re-enables all radios, and there is no way to just turn off the cell radios on my phone (they are constantly on unless airplane mode is enabled). I'd love to be able to browse the internet on my phone while flying using the wifi available on the plane, but to do so would violate federal law (since it would activate my cell radios as well).

The idea is nice, but until they allow for cell reception on planes, I don't think in-flight wifi will ever be useful to anyone with a smartphone.

If I'm wrong, please let me know. By the way, I'm an Android user, and if there is a way to disable only the cell radios that I haven't found, I'd love to know how to do it.

I don't know if this works on Android but since around iOS 3 after enabling airplane mode you can go back into the settings menu and reenable wifi while still leaving the cell radios off. Personally I use SBSettings on my jailbroken iPhone that let's me turn off the radios individually. I'd be surprised if you can't do this on an Android phone.

It may be that not many people would want to make a call, it's that there will be one person within earshot who will. Even today I know plenty of people who are talking right until the door closes (and slightly after) and reaching for their phone as soon as the plane touches the ground.